<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Intermediate-to-Advanced Fundamentals
Review: Good book for those looking for drills that can move their average and excellent players from the most basic fundamentals to intermediate (middle-of-the-road) and advanced techniques of baseball. The book breaks down every defensive position, chapter-by-chapter, giving extensive defensive drills to improve play at those positions. It also devotes a couple of well-written chapters to overall team drills. This book will have more application for older and/or advanced players. Many of these drills should be used with some 8 year olds. On the other hand, some of the more advance drills will be too advanced for even 12-13 year olds. This book does not contain drills for the most basic defensive techniques, such as the very beginning mechanics of throwing and catching. And even though these beginning mechanics are part of the mechanics taught in this book for pitching, infielding, and outfielding, the reader will have difficulty picking them up from this book. This book does a good job of capturing the essense of these techniques, and for the money, is a good, quick-reference, resource to have on the shelf. However, the book is limited, due to the printed medium, it is ability to adequately convey the many subtleties of baseball fundamentals; so some readers may prefer to study these techniques from video tapes, or a more graphic medium. Generally, I have been unable to find a comprehensive book that covers all aspects of the game: defense and offense, beginning through advanced drills. So overall, this book has improved my library and has filled a needed gap in understanding and coaching defensive baseball.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Intermediate-to-Advanced Fundamentals
Review: Good book for those looking for drills that can move their average and excellent players from the most basic fundamentals to intermediate (middle-of-the-road) and advanced techniques of baseball. The book breaks down every defensive position, chapter-by-chapter, giving extensive defensive drills to improve play at those positions. It also devotes a couple of well-written chapters to overall team drills. This book will have more application for older and/or advanced players. Many of these drills should be used with some 8 year olds. On the other hand, some of the more advance drills will be too advanced for even 12-13 year olds. This book does not contain drills for the most basic defensive techniques, such as the very beginning mechanics of throwing and catching. And even though these beginning mechanics are part of the mechanics taught in this book for pitching, infielding, and outfielding, the reader will have difficulty picking them up from this book. This book does a good job of capturing the essense of these techniques, and for the money, is a good, quick-reference, resource to have on the shelf. However, the book is limited, due to the printed medium, it is ability to adequately convey the many subtleties of baseball fundamentals; so some readers may prefer to study these techniques from video tapes, or a more graphic medium. Generally, I have been unable to find a comprehensive book that covers all aspects of the game: defense and offense, beginning through advanced drills. So overall, this book has improved my library and has filled a needed gap in understanding and coaching defensive baseball.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty basic, and don't look for how-to information here
Review: I was a little disappointed with the book, but maybe because I expected the wrong thing.
The book gives you drills only. It will tell you how to do the drill, what equipment you need, and what to focus on. It will not however tell you how to do most of the things that the drills try to teach you. Sometimes you can get an idea from the "things to focus on". In general however, no explanation is given how to properly execute a certain play, movement, etc.. Most drills will have a line which says: "Make sure the player uses the proper technique working the drill." The book won't tell you what that proper technique is though. That you'll find in a different book from Rod Delmonico "Defensive Baseball".
Most of the drills covered, although important, and heavily used by most coaches, are also completely standard. For example, there is a drill for the first baseman to catch bad throws that hop in front of him. The only thing the drill says (more or less) is: "Throw short hops in front of the first baseman, to his left and his right." That's it. Nobody really needs a book for that.
Also every drill is on two pages, one page text and one page pictures. Those pictures are all large, wasting a lot of space. In his book "Defensive Baseball" Delmonico does a much better job of putting a whole series of very small pictures for certain mechanics, from which you can understand the whole movement. In many cases, especially with all the standard drills, the pictures are even completely unnecessary, just filling up pages.
Many of the somewhat more advanced drills use a pitching machine, so if you don't have one, tough luck.
I could hardly find a drill in this book that was new to me, and most of the ones that were used some fancy equipment (we're talking about 2-3 drills here though, so don't worry, there is no emphasis on using unusual equipment).
If you're looking for some new drills, and you've coached a bit, or if you are looking for some thought through, somewhat more complicated, all team drills, this is not the book. If you want a reference, something to remind you of some drills you could use, because for example you tend to get into the habit of always using the same ones after a while, this book does a good job.
Rating:
Summary: Need defensive help?
Review: Some of my ballplayers (JV in high school) were having a very difficult time defensively. I started incorporating some of the drills from this book, a little at a time. Now, our team and individual defense has improved a great deal. This book breaks things down very well. It can help coaches at any level with their defensive strategies.
<< 1 >>
| 
